The Southern California Linux Expo turned their annual event up to 11 this year in more ways than one.

SCALE 11X, celebrating its 11th year as the first-of-the-year Linux/Open Source expo in North America, played host to more than 2,300 attendees visiting more than 100 exhibitors and hearing more than 90 speakers giving a wide variety of presentations during the course of the three-day event.

The SCALE team wants to generate buzz about exhibitors and provide an icebreaking opportunity for vendors to reach out to attendees in the exhibit hall. So we have a new activity this year to help our attendees appreciate the presentation you've created at your booth, our new Exhibitor Contest.

Every badge sheet this year has a "Favorite SCALE Exhibitors" contest ballot printed on it, for attendees to slip into their badge sleeves. If you want to participate, this is your opportunity: you can ask attendees to vote for you on the spot, anytime, anywhere.

We had a chance to sit down with Guillermo Antonio Amaral Bastidas, SCALE 11x speaker and exhibitor, and discuss some of the exciting projects he's been working on. Guillermo will be speaking about his free & open source video game system, as well as showing it off in his exhibitor booth.

SCALE: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

If you attend any Linux/FOSS event during the course of the year on, oh, the planet Earth, you'll probably run into Ruth Suehle. Ruth works in Red Hat's Open Source and Standards group, which aims to help upstream open source software communities. She also leads the Fedora Project's marketing team and is co-author of the upcoming Raspberry Pi Hacks book from O'Reilly. Ruth will give the presentation "Pi on Your Face: Getting Hands-on with Raspberry Pi" on Sunday, Feb. 24, at 4:30 p.m. in room Century CD. The SCALE Team caught her at the airport for this brief interview.

After winning a record number of NBA championships . . . oh, wait. Not that Phil Jackson? OK. As Development Community Advocate for SoftLayer, Phil Jackson is the lead customer contact for SoftLayer’s robust API. He also develops and maintains a portion of the company’s software platform and content. Phil is giving the presentation "Anatomy of an Internet Scale Application" on Saturday, Feb. 23, at 1:30 p.m. in room Los Angeles C.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?